Fill 'er up with laughs!

Brent Butt comes home to Saskatchewan with CTV sitcom Corner Gas.

By Vern Smith

If comedy didn't work out, Brent Butt always thought he'd be pumping gas for a living and cracking wise with coffee-shop cronies. But something funny happened on the way to minimum-wage glory–his fallback plan became the logline for Corner Gas, the first network TV series shot in Saskatchewan.

And with over a million viewers tuning in reguarly, you could say that Butt's comedy career is working out after all.

“Most of my friends growing up worked at the gas station,” says Butt, a native of Tisdale, Saskatchewan. “That was their part-time job, and one day I was thinking, what would I do if I didn't get into show business? I told myself I'd probably be pumping gas. I found that kind of amusing, so I just started writing it up.”

As if “just writing it up” wasn't enough, Butt is also the creator, star, and executive producer of the 13-part sitcom, which debuted on CTV in January after weeks of regular on-air plugs.

Wearing so many nameplates has its advantages, especially creative control.

Butt says having input at all those levels gives him a better chance at maintaining his vision–and “putting the kibosh on any weird ideas the director or prop people might have.”

The downside, of course, is 16-hour days for four months.

The fact that Butt didn't feel a lot of pressure in playing for a hometown crowd helped make things easier though. “The thing about Saskatchewan is people kind of have this God-bless-you-for-trying attitude,” Butt says, speaking before the show's debut. “They take everything in stride, which has something to do with living in an environment with no surroundings to put it in perspective. Friends of mine think it's neat, but nothing changes as far as they're concerned. If it's a hit or if it stinks, it doesn't matter.”

Corner Gas is set at a remote service station in the fictional town of Dog River, Saskatchewan. The situation revolves around Butt's character–station owner Brent LeRoy–and his relationship with transients as well as locals.

The main set–a remote gas café–was constructed on the outskirts of Rouleau, Saskatchewan. Out front, the sign claimed to offer gas and food. So, despite the camera, the crew spent much of the summer explaining to folks who pulled in expecting a fill-up that no, there was no gas.

“We were just up the highway,” says Butt, whose 1998 Comedy Now special was nominated for a Gemini. “Usually, the first or second AD, sometimes the location manager, would run over and tell people, 'No gas.' Then they'd be saying, 'We just want to use the bathroom.' And he'd say, 'Well, there's no bathroom.' You'd have at least one every day.”

Torontonians ain't so different from Dog River-ites

Executive producer Virginia Thompson describes Corner Gas as a sitcom “about a lot of quirky people who get up to a lot of nothing in the middle of nowhere.” To that end, it plays on stereotypes by having some fun with the differences between life in the Prairies and the big, bad city.

First, last, and always, though, Butt says it's about being funny. If there is an underlying message, it's that folks are more the same than they are different.

“If you're from Dog River or Toronto, we're not really as different as people think. There are cultural quirks. But basically, we're all the same. And also, sometimes urbanites have the notion that small-town people are rubes–dim. And really, in my travels, some of the sharpest people I've ever met are small-town people.”

Some of that, Butt says, has to do with the fact that rural residents don't have much in the way of resources, meaning they often have to rely on their own abilities to solve problems instead of hiring jobs out.

“Somebody said how smart you are depends on what two square feet of dirt you're standing on,” says Butt. “So if you take a Toronto stockbroker and he's looking at a couple of grain farmers who don't know how to use the subway, they'll seem pretty stupid. But take that stockbroker and put him out by some barley bins and he doesn't know what to do.”

See the Spring 2004 issue of Canadian Screenwriter for the complete interview.